There are some people who when you meet them you just automatically click. This can be in a funny way, a friendly way, a romantic way, or even just simply that you enjoy being around them. These are the people that it’s just so easy to be yourself around, the people for whom you don’t have to put up your barriers and block out. I believe these people to be soul mates.

A lot of people think of soul mates as “the one” that you meet and fall in love with and you’ll live happily ever after with. I, however, think soul mates are so much more than that. It seems pretty silly to think that out of everyone on this earth there is one singular person out there for you to meet and live happily ever after with.

My thought is that every person has a lot of soul mates, some romantic, some just for good company along the ride. These are the friends that memories are made around, just by doing everyday things.

When you get older and you tell the kids about the good ole’ days, how just ordinary days became extraordinary simply because of the people you spent them with, those are soul mates.

When you meet someone new and you go from strangers to best friends in the course of a weekend, those are soul mates.

When you find yourself alone at 3:00 a.m., crying because the love of your life just cheated on you and your friend is there ready to both cry with you and simultaneously go on a witch hunt, those are soulmates.

The thing with life though is that it’s always changing, and as life changes so do you and the people around you. Best friends, lovers, soul mates, they can all change. Sometimes it’s for the better, and sometimes you wish things could just always be the same as they were when times were good.

But sometimes things don’t change between people and they end up just fading out of your life for one reason or another. You may not have had a falling out or a big fight, but it seems like you just have a mutual understanding that you don’t talk anymore. Nobody really knows how or when it happened, but you just drifted slowly apart until neither of you really knew what was going on in each other’s lives.

You used to spend your nights talking to them about everything and anything until you looked and realized it was 4:00 a.m. and you have a precalc test in the morning, but you didn’t care because you just loved talking to them. And now. Now you haven’t talked in how long? A few months? Maybe a year?

This isn’t to try and rekindle the friendships you used to have, but if that’s what you think is best, go for it! Absolutely take the idea and run with it. Who knows? Maybe everything goes back to normal.

But this is to try and make an effort going forward to prevent this from happening to the soul mates in your life right now. Think of your friends, and think about the ones you see yourself growing old with. Hold onto them, let them know they’re loved, and let them know how much they mean to you. Because one day, like it or not, you may drift apart.

But the best part about soul mates is that there are never any bad memories. Sure, you may regret losing touch, but you can always look back on the times you had as some of the best you’ve ever had because that’s what soul mates are for.